Ice skating help? First timer?

Tips to begin ice-skating?

• Can anyone tell em a few simple tips for ice-skating? I'm a complete first timer of medium fitness and will not want to make a fool of myself. Help, please?

• Answer:

  When you first get your skates (and I advise hiring them until you decide you want to skate often), just practice walking in them on a floor, then slowly step onto the ice. When I learned, I actually had lessons, and we skated width ways across the rink, and I think this was so the barrier didn't become like a crutch. So, stay near the barrier, and use it if you feel like you're going to fall, but don't rely on it to hold you up. Keep your knees bent, this lowers your centre of gravity and means if you do fall it won't be so bad. Hold your arms out to the side at about shoulder height to help with balance. Begin by taking small steps, but then graduate into pushing each leg out behind you, like you're trying to push something away behind you. This is basic stroking. Once you get confident, build up speed. Another way to start, is to stand with heels together, then bend your knees so that you bring your toes together, then push out again. This is called sculling, also known as lemons, swizzles, fishes or many other names. To stop, the easiest way I found is to quickly bring your toes together, pushing your heels out. This is the snowplow and is one of the easier stops to do. To go backwards, I reverse the sculling technique, standing with toes together and pushing back, but don't try this til you're confident going forwards and stopping. Hope that helps.